Programmable machines continue to progress as software and software writing tools advance. However, programmers may still rewrite software that has already been written due to the time requirements associated with finding and reviewing existing software, personal preference, lack of knowledge of the presence of existing software, or other reasons. As a result, software often includes code portions that may be less than ideal, even if functionally equivalent. Previous solutions that address this problem include “Software Equivalence Checking,” U.S. Patent Publication No. 2011/0138362, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
Compilers and interpreters convert human-readable source code into machine-readable code (e.g., object code, executable code, etc.) for execution. Compilers can negate the effects of many coding issues, but not all and not always completely. For example, a piece of software code comprising the traversal of each element of an array may have different performance characteristics if the coder traverses the array by row elements and then increments the column, or by column elements and then increments the row. Object code, such as an assembler, may store values differently and require more processing steps when using one technique versus another, even though the end result is the same. Similarly, the choice of a particular sorting methodology may have a significant impact on performance based on the data being sorted. For example, a bubble sort is efficient when sorting a relatively small number of elements or a large number of elements that have only a few elements that are not in sort-order. However, bubble sort is likely to be a poor choice for most other applications.
Even if two sets of software each produce the same result, not all software has the same effect, such as within an application or within a software management system. Software may have inefficiencies or other undesirable issues. As a result, computers or other machines executing software may operate in a less than ideal capacity.